Michael Jordan says his pizza was poisoned before ‘Flu Game.’ The man who made it disagrees
One of the popular narratives surrounding Michael Jordan’s career just got debunked.
Episode nine of “The Last Dance” saw Jordan and his longtime trainer Tim Grover reveal that “The Flu Game” was in fact nothing more than a “bad case of food poisoning game” courtesy of a late night pizza. But one Utah man says the charges of poison are lies.
As if that weren’t enough earth-shattering news for the week, a Utah man now says the charges of poison are nothing but lies.
That Utahn is none other than Craig Fite, who claims to have made and delivered the pizza. He called into 1280 The Zone’s “The Big Show” on Monday to share his side of the story.
“The crap story that the guy said, that there was five people, there was two of us — and I didn’t have that many people working at the time at the store — but there was only two of us,” Fite, an ex-Pizza Hut employee, said.
Fite later doubled down, saying that he was “100 percent certain” Jordan didn’t get sick from “that pizza.” He also pointed to the combination of MJ’s cigar smoking and the open windows of his hotel room as a possible reasoning behind the NBA legend’s illness.
The “crap story” in question stems from Grover, Jordan and his friend George Koehler’s account of the events leading up to Game 5 of the 1997 Finals. As told in the documentary, the trio had just ordered Jordan a pizza and were waiting in his room the night before the Bulls’ matchup against the Utah Jazz.
When the pizza finally arrived, Grover recalled being immediately suspicious because there were five people at the door.
Jordan devoured the entire pizza — which Fite noted was thin and crispy with extra pepperoni — without help. Grover said he went to check on the then-four-time NBA Champion a short time later and discovered him “literally curled up in a ball, shaking.”
After being unable to sleep, eat or leave bed for most of the day, Jordan somehow made it to the Delta Center and deliver one of the most iconic performances in NBA history.
Jordan finished with 38 points, including a go-ahead three-ball with 25 seconds left, in 44 minutes. The Bulls would win 90-88 in what will forever be known as “The Flu Game” — despite reports of the contrary.
There’s no way of telling who’s in fact misremembering that fateful night in June 1997. And, quite frankly, it really doesn’t matter. Jordan still was sick, still played sick and, most importantly, still balled sick. How it happened is nothing more than NBA lore — the fact that it did is what’s most important.
This story was originally published May 19, 2020 at 4:44 PM.
